From Rags To Riches: Mk4 project

[EricsCaddy]

So the eagle eyed members may have noticed I’ve posted a few things recently regarding the mk4 shape caddy and upgraded that can be done. I’ll start off by saying I’ve already got a 2009 caddy with virtually every upgrade you’ve heard of, far to much to list, so I know my way around them!

I figured it was time to update so I purchased a 2019, 2.0 highline with 31,000 miles on the clock but with a slight twist to most of you. It’s been parked up for 6 month after it had a little fight with a pollard. Hard to say who won but the caddy certainly obtained a punch on the nose, smashing the headlight, damaging the wing, corner of the bonnet and front bumper. It all looks very minor to me but I’ve done this facelift on a friends caddy and facelifted my 2009 caddy so knew all the parts were easy to get hold of and nice to work on.

[EricsCaddy]

We all know everyone is here for the photos so here it is, day 1, fuel tank empty, battery totally flat and looking very very sorry for itself.

I’ll not discuss prices but I’m extremely happy with what it cost me, I had to negotiate with the insurance company and got it for less than the bottom offer buy back price.

[EricsCaddy]

Had to start somewhere so got a 50L drum, went to the local fuel station, got a mortgage and half filled it. Now have around 1/4 of a tank but at least I know it’s got vpower diesel and that’s one light off the dash!

Next was the battery, I removed it and checked it with a multimeter, was literally on zero. I hooked it up to an advanced charger and put it on recovery mode. Two days later it said it was alive again and holding some voltage. Changed the settings to AGM stop start battery charge and left it for another 6 hours while I tackled some over jobs, when I next checked it the charger said it was full so that was a good save! It can now start and drive under its own power again.

[EricsCaddy]

Since the vans off the road for a few weeks I wanted to do a few modifications. I wanted to add dual zone digital climate control, virtual cockpit, caddy life trims, arm rest, carpets and a few other bits and pieces.

Bad news, I can’t find all the parts needed to complete the digital heater controls so that’s on hold for now unless a member on here can help out? the dash is removed ready for the heater box to be swapped.

Good news, I found someone breaking a Caddy life model so purchased a few items I needed such as the arm rest and carpets which I’ve been told are very rare to come across as most people use the touran version but they use a different colour trim.



I’ve stripped the full interior almost, everything just feels and smells brand new still so very happy with general condition.
I sprayed some aqua wax on the flooring and gave it a little clean so it will stay like new for many years to come. I’m going to add a few sheets of sound deadening before adding the insulation and carpets (but not before they’ve been wet vaced and cleaned!)

Also… removed the seat belts and sent them away to be re-trimmed to match my colour theme I’ve got planned so will update with photos when they arrive back

[Lister79]

What parts are you struggling with? There are loads of breaker cars on eBay that will have the parts you need. Example:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/125130042178 ... media=COPY


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[EricsCaddy]

Hey, I’ve messaged them with no luck, it’s the heater box I can’t find any of, but if you know of any please message me and I’ll get it ordered

I’ve messaged a few breakers but none of them seem to want to sell them (or go through the effort of stripping a dash down to remove it)

[ToiletTFSI]

I have a spare heater box for climatronic - and also the modern heater controls.

Will have a look over the weekend for the box.

[EricsCaddy]

Roughly one week later it’s mostly all put back together and been out for a test drive, didn’t take as many pictures as I’d have liked but overall there was very little damage to begin with.

I replaced the radiator support frame since the old one had a small crack on the left. I could have just glued it back together but didn’t want any sort of “bodges” on the van and for the sake of around £100 just made sense.

The only other damage was the connector on the coolant pipe for the radiator so got a brand new radiator also.



With a new radiator and support frame the front end all went back together how it should be all looking 100%

I did notice when checking over the wiring and the plugs the front radar plug had snapped and pulled two pins out. I’m quite handy with wiring so de-pinned the plug, soldered on some fresh wire and pins then connected everything back together, it’d a temporary fix until a brand new plug and new pins gets delivered.

[EricsCaddy]

Interior wise, while it was stripped down I added extra sound deadening to the floor and purchased some very low mileage caddy life black carpets. I got the wet vac out and cleaned them front to back. (Forgive the foot prints, I had to stand in the van to fit the arm rest

It made sense to grab a few other bits like the adjustable arm rest since it was also in the correct black trim colour and also in great condition. It needed the usual trimming at the back but got it all fitted nicely.




And then back together, still not done but this is the start of a long project and had to show updates doing something!


Also gave it a very quick wash to see what was under the layers of dirt, thankfully no dents of scratches but we’ll get to the bodywork in a future post



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[EricsCaddy]

Been busy with plenty fun upgrades but pictures are a little poor… I’ll do the best with what I’ve got.

As above the dash has been refitted, black adjustable armrest and black carpets have been fitted with all the correct trim to go with them.

Since it’s a blue van I knew I wanted a blue and black theme. While the interior was stripped out I replaced the seat belts with something a little fancier than standard.

What I bought…



And what would go perfect with blue and black seat belts?
Blue and black GTI tartan!!

Managed to find some 100% perfect low mileage Golf GTE seats, literally look like they’ve just left the showroom with zero wear or damage




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[EricsCaddy]

Fired up the wet vac machine and gave the seats a full deep clean. Went to the shops in preparation for fitting the GTE seats, got a brand new 6, 8 and 10mm drill bits and 8 high tensile 17mm nuts bolts and washers to drill the caddy bases and get these bolted down. To my surprise…. These seats are a direct fit? no modifications needed, who knew

Seat belts had arrived a little while back so got those fitted.



Mid job…



And fitted!



I’m absolutely thrilled with the results and combination of the seats and belts, colour match is really good considering and sets each other off nicely.

[EricsCaddy]

As seen in the original post, this caddy had some bodywork damage, I went to the dealers and bought a brand new bonnet and drivers wing, headlight was an old second hand one as I’ve got factory xenons going in when all the parts arrive.

Front bumper was second hand but in the right colour with minor marks.

I dropped everything off to the bodyshop to get….

Both wings, bonnet and bumper painted just so the front end is all matching and all brand new basically.







I purchased an aftermarket all gloss black grill, seems a little fragile so might end up smashed yet but time will tell on that one.
Decided sod it so got two brand new fog lights, two new fog surrounds and brand new lower middle grill just so it’s all brand new and matching so it’s not mix matched new and old parts.

Results are… well a boring standard looking caddy on the outside but it won’t be for long.

[EricsCaddy]

One of the biggie updates.

I searched and posted for the last 4 month looking for options on a virtual dash but every option led to a blank, basically told impossible.

I had seen an aftermarket option fitted in a friends mk6 Golf gti and was impressed with it, so looked into that more to see which dashes people have retrofitted. I knew some had Touran, Tiguan, Scirocco and a few others so set about matching up what would fit the best.

I took my chances and bit the bullet, sent my money to China and waited for the 2015 VW Scirocco virtual dash to turn up. Five days later, it was here!



I had to strip down my original clocks and make it a blank circuit board, removing the needles, gauges and four motors, only took two minutes and then pop that board inside the virtual dash so the immobiliser, mileage and data for component protection all match up, quick plug in to test… success!




Now… it’s a scirocco dash so not a direct fit. It needs trimming so I made a template and started to sand it to size.



Using the above method has got it about… 95% there, however it sits slightly different so needs to be a different shape, I should have left the sides slightly wider but I’ve got future plans so it won’t matter for me much but if anyone else decided to do this… DONT TRIM IT TO MATCH THE ORIGINAL CADDY CLUSTER!




Few pictures of it in action.





It supports screen mirroring, android auto, car play etc so can watch full screen YouTube videos, movies, Apple satnav etc all on the dash if you wanted. Also displays speed still so great if your wanting to catch up on last nights coronation street while on the way to work (don’t do that)

[EricsCaddy]

To finish off the day I continued with my blue theme. I purchased a steering wheel cover that retrims the original steering wheel. I love these as it makes the original wheel thicker for a sportier feel and get to pick the design. I went with perforated leather for the thumb grips and solid smooth leather top and bottom with of course, blue stitching.

Spent 15 minutes getting it started before packing up for the day, will continue on with it tomorrow for abit as it usually takes a good hour or so and becomes very tedious work.

[Andrew5]

Coming along nicely the seats look great
Is the armrest a mk3 anthracite? what’s the match like with the titan black I hate having no armrest but haven’t found a black one yet and could you tell me where you got the black grill from thanks